


How Many Nights We Swallowed the Sky

by Ghostigos



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Cognitive Dissonance, Dissociation, F/F, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 17:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14337672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostigos/pseuds/Ghostigos
Summary: Sayori invites some friends over for tea.





	How Many Nights We Swallowed the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> _( - Like letters that arrive addressed to someone Who left the house so many years ago)_
> 
> Major spoilers for the 'True' Ending of DDLC, so if you haven't played the game you're gonna be hella confused
> 
> Warnings for references to canon-typical violence within the game (i.e. child abuse, self-harm, suicide, depersonalization, mental illness, etc.) so proceed cautiously if any of those topics aren't your strongsuit.

Like the rest of your world, Sayori's house is nothing special. You'd brush it off as another bland and tasteless addition to the reality you're forced to endure, if the exception was Sayori's bedroom, covered with her plushies and cutesy accessories that you could recognize as _her_ a mile away. Quite unlike your former bedroom, tucked in your nonexistent house, amidst an extinct neighborhood. You think that Sayori started to take more priority in claiming her territory with personal items after she figured everything out herself. Like it's a token to prove that she exists, however strained 'existing' is.

It's hard, still, to ignore the numerical coding when you're revived. Like pressing thousands of digits into your overstuffed temple, processing everything like a manual piece of tech. Knowing that what you see is just a grid - a large, premeditated grid. An equation that you were never supposed to solve, but you made the effort to anyway.

And it's even harder to acknolwedge that the only reason you've been granted this clarity is because you broke something. You and your friends were given permission to reach out and touch something tangible, only to have this horrid truth masked as an innocent mission to fall in love with the selected person (except you, which is still a cruel form of irony that laughter bubbles in the back of your throat like acid).

The teacup that you're holding feels corporeal enough between your fingertips, so you focus on that. It's a dainty thing, with patterns delicately swirled into the side - a small perk that can only remind you of Yuri. It would be rude to break it.

Sayori pokes her head into the living room to check on you. She's just finished setting Yuri and Natsuki to work in her kitchen (you recall Natsuki's eyes shifting into something of a relief when it was suggested they all bake at Sayori's house, rather than her own). In the background - outside of the chipped, pitched cacophony of a soundtrack that always settles into a looming ambience - you hear Natsuki take full charge on instructing Yuri how to prepare their pastries.

You smile, eyes flitting to the kitchen behind your club member. "It seems like Natsuki has really been eager to show off her new recipes."

Sayori nods, then walks forward so she can sit across from you, settled in her living room. Her eyes are a little heavy, you notice, and you wonder how much omnipotent knowledge she's had to endure once you dropped the burden of President onto her already-drooping shoulders.

"I'm really happy that she could find an outlet," she finally says, her voice perked with feigned with optimism, as always. "I think she's been trying to distract herself more since her dad was really mean about not letting her get any hormonal treatment."

Your lips tighten with sudden reproach. "I worry about them."

"I know." Sayori's voice offers no source of comfort, surprisingly. It doesn't take a huge anaylsis of her demeanor to acknowledge that she's still definitely mad at you for all you've done.

You know you don't deserve forgiveness. But there is still justification to your actions somewhere, you think. To experiment with fate like you're in any position to play god...to dip your friends into cognitive insanity and holding the key to restoring their engraved personalities, but turning a blind eye anyway to see what would happen if you held all the cards. 

Shame on yourself, for daring to fall for something real.

But admittedly, you'd intruded on so many boundaries that you can't revert to normalcy after seeing all the ugly edges your friends bore. Like overturning a boulder and discovering all the dirt and wriggling insects underneath.

It must be hard to conceal your internal contemplation - either that, or Sayori holds the same amount of introspection that you once obtained - because Sayori quickly rebuttals, "Monika, I'm not mad at you." But her smile is still sad.

You shake your head, watching the tea in your cup spiral into a wavering swirl at your motion. "I wouldn't blame you if you harbored any ill intent towards me, Sayori. We both know that I did some really bad things." And all for the sake of a fleeting, star-crossed love.

"Well, yeah... But!" Sayori points a sharp index finger that reaches to your chest. It makes brief contact and you remark on the sharp jab on your heart. "It's not like you didn't have a reason to be so upset! You were just scared, Monika. I think we _all_ would've acted strangely if we knew what was really going on. I just wish you'd told us what was on your mind before...y'know, everything happened."

It's your turn to give a melancholic smile, less convincing than Sayori's seasoned visor. "I thought about it before. Telling you, I mean. I just... I guess I didn't know what to say." You pause to blow on your tea and take a sip, but when it hits your taste buds you're a bit taken aback by the striking tang. Your face must have visibly crinkled at the taste, because Sayori takes a moment to giggle.

"Yuri's been trying out some new floral teas," Sayori explains lightly. "I don't remember what she said that one was. I think jasmine? Maybe Hibiscus?"

You smack your lips and set the teacup onto your lap. "It's very...surprising."

She laughs again. "I know, I don't think Yuri brought any of her usual spices this time. I can get some honey from the kitchen, if it's that bad."

"If you don't mind," you reply, diplomatic.

At your request, Sayori bounces off the couch and practically skips into the kitchen, and you hear her presence verbally welcomed by Natsuki and Yuri alike. There's a moment of pleasant chatter that you _wish_ you could overhear, if the stupid fucking soundtrack of your life could shut the _fuck_ up for a second.

Maybe, if they were to return - or if they performed a hard reset - you could convert back to ignorance. Where the colors weren't so bright and static that it sears your corneas and you've had to resort to glasses for comfort (courtesy of Sayori, as per usual); where the slight dips in the cracks aren't so noticeable. Where the music in the back of your brain is charming, not taunting and screeching in your dreamlike state.

You're tired. You want to forget, so that when the world restarts you can be the smart, athletic, beautiful, popular, etc. Monika that you like to think they fell for.

Even if your story was designed to have you as an offscreen contestant, perhaps you could have reached a form of acceptance regardless. It's not your friends' fault that they were destined for a romantic route, and you weren't.

It's not their fault at all...

Your head is hurting again when Sayori returns. To your surprise, she holds out a jar of golden liquid in one hand and, in the other, places some aspirins on the counter.

"Here," she murmurs, and her words sting your eardrums. "It helps when the noise becomes too noticeable."

Endlessly grateful, you reach for the pills first and chug them down without hesitation, anonymous tea be damned. Then you drop a small glob of honey into the cup to soothe the raw, floral tang of your drink.

"Thank you," you whisper, touched. The error messages subside.

Sayori nods wordlessly, looking amused; you assume that your disgust for bittersweet drinks has protruded onto your expression again. With a dainty teaspoon placed onto the cup's saucer, you watch the honey melt into the heated liquid as you stir, stir, stir the flavors into one. Dissolving the secondary factor in the process. Deeming its physical existence unnecessary, so long as the end product is sweetened.

You take a sip. Better.

"As I was saying," you continue, pushing your glasses onto your nose's bridge absently, "I think...that I was so intent on discovering everything on my own that... I just didn't want anyone else to get involved."

"So you _were_ scared?" Sayori presses after a moment. You hear something heavy drop in the kitchen, but the noise is too fuzzy for you to interpret the source of the crash. Yuri's voice blast into earshot, with Natsuki's following after; the aspirin is kicking in, fortunately.

"...a little," you admit sheepishly. "But I don't... That wasn't the _only_ reason I refrained from talking about it."

Sayori's elbows come to rest on her knees as she leans forward, appearing oddly attentive.

You stare back down at the intricate patterns along Yuri's cup. How many numbers, formulas, codes were warped and tugged so that you, a nonexistent entity, could taste this drink, can feel it warm your stomach?

"I wanted to figure it all out for myself so that..." you pause, recollect, try again: "I thought that, maybe if I could learn all the secrets behind all of... _this_ ," you gesture around the blank living room, "then maybe I could take it and...I don't know. Use it?"

Sayori hums; she's still a neutral party to your tale, but it's encouraging to know that she's still listening.

Admitting this aloud makes you feel even more sour. Before the anonymous lover, even, you were walking on thin ice - you cut into the crackled pond with your skates and still you danced along its rims. You wonder if the reason you're still described as sweet and kind and passionate and all the good adjectives is only because you were designed that way; you are not a good person of your own volition. You're malfunctioned, and your updated settings are still catching up with the rest of the world. And then your dark and glitchy insides will bleed out into the open, and everyone will know...

Sayori finally clasps her smooth, gentle hands around your own. The teacup is shaking, and you hadn't noticed.

"Monika," she starts, her voice gentle. She brings you back with the way she pronounces your name; like it's something sacred and worth dancing along her lips. ( _It doesn't make sense, that none of this is supposed to be real..._ ) "There's nothing wrong with wanting to control the things around you. I think that if I was in your position at the time, I might've done something really, really drastic too. Just to...experiment. Like you said."

You know what she means. It makes your guts tangle into a pretty bow.

She sighs, smoothing your knuckles with fingers that are as soft as butterfly kisses. "I don't think that how you acted was unrealistic. What else were you supposed to do? It's so... _big!_ To think that this is all there is for any of us? I mean, it's huge! And I had trouble getting out of bed _before?_ "

Sayori retracts, and there's a smile on her face again but it doesn't really compliment her gaze. "I still think about what they said: that they were happy that I got out of bed today. And I think that they really, really meant it."

Your chest warms at the mention of the third party, the elephant in the room. They really did seem so eager to make all of you happy... you can't even recall their face, and you adore them still.

"If it's like you said, that we're just a big fake world that doesn't matter," Sayori says - this time her face is pink, and you think it suits her hair: "Then, it's such an honor that they wanted to spend that much time with us. Because it means that we _meant_ something."

There's a prickling in your eyes that in uncharacteristic of your terse exterior. You hadn't thought of it like that: that the person on the other side of the looking glass was reaching out to _you_ , too. Whoever they truly were, they stuck through all the inadvertent glitches and obvious red flags that you'd created. They wanted to see the happy ending to the end, even if you broke so many things and faltered in so many areas. You'd destroyed everything, and yet...

You sigh wistfully, in spite of your torrential thoughts. "Do you think they'll come back?" There's no clarification needed on who you're referring to.

In place of an answer, you and Sayori both reflect on the humming background. Natsuki and Yuri are still baking, to your knowledge, but they've either fallen into a complacent silence or you just can't hear them right now on account of technical difficulties.

Then, Sayori answers: "I don't know. But, maybe it doesn't matter? That they come back, I mean. Like, our memories with them are really sweet already, and besides, doesn't absence make the heart grow fonder?"

You furrow your brows in thought. "Maybe..."

"And we're still here!" Sayori's arms fling up into the air with a burst of elation; her smile is bigger now, her eyes bright. "So that means we're not permanently deleted yet! And the world around us is broken, but it's still here, so maybe it can be real for us?"

"What do you mean?" you ask. You reach for another spoonful of honey.

"Well, maybe there's a point where things are so fake that they're real, y'know? Like, even though I know that everything is made up, it wasn't for us until we figured out that it was!"

You blink.

Sayori... whom you watched struggle under a rope until her neck was too swollen to breathe. Who had trouble finding purpose in activities, and sacrificed so much to appease her friends. Who knows that the world around you isn't right, and that the childhood friend she recalls sharing so many memories with was just an understudy so that the player could step into his shoes as easily as slipping on a coat. She knows the world around you isn't right...and yet, she has a point.

Perhaps, you think, this is why no other drastic measure is made upon her life anymore - you think of Yuri, with her arms patched from compulsive episodes, and how contradictory Sayori's limbs are, cleansed of harm; her pain rots inwardly. And yet she has something fierce in her, something like a heart. Like she knows that if she were to crumble, the world would likely crumble with her.

You made a good choice in electing her as Vice President. If either of your other club members were in her position...you really don't know how much either could handle. But you remember the disasters that ensued when Sayori was gone, and you let them taste the existential hellscape you all were coerced to reside in, for just a moment. How they collapsed under what they couldn't understand.

But even then... Natsuki and Yuri may be tedious archetypes, but they're your friends. And they _feel_ real, they _sound_ real. And maybe that's what makes it a reality.

There's a faint smile on your lips now, remembering. "I guess you're right," you murmur. "It seems like the player really did enjoy their time at our club."

Sayori perks up at your agreement. "Yes! Exactly! That means that maybe we're not far off from being real after all!"

"Hm." You think for a moment, then smile again. "We were real to them, if only for a little while. And...I still hope that they come back, but like you said: it might not matter as much anymore. Maybe it's for the best now." It aches to say, but there's truth in what you've stated, even if you yourself despise it. You are meant to please the player, but they're gone now. And you're a terrarium that wasn't left to be unsupervised, and you grow anyway. You grow weeds and sprout along concrete, where you're forbidden to sprout. And even if you're forbidden from loving something real, then...

"Oh! Speaking of..." Sayori suddenly scrambles for a backpack of hers that sits beside her couch. You watch curiously as she makes a few frustrated grunts as she shuffles along some mismatched papers, then settles on an object of choice and rips it out of the pouch. Triumphantly, she holds it out to you.

A slip of paper.

You quirk a brow in her direction, assuming that it's another poem she wants you to proofread, but with surprise you open it and see that it's a flyer. Entitled, _'Join the Literature Club!'_

There are at least ten different signatures.

You look back up at Sayori, mouth open. She wriggles with excitement in her seat. "Surprise!" she trills, promoting her enthusiasm via jazz hands. "Natsuki thought about posting flyers around the school, since our session at the festival was such a success!"

"I..." You're speechless.

"Yay! I knew you'd love it!" She claps vividly. "The Literature Club was your idea, after all."

"...When do you all meet?"

"This Tuesday," Sayori grins. "That's why Natsuki's been so happy to cook. She's going to make cupcakes _and_ she's going to try out a new recipe for mochi! It might melt on the way to school, but the teachers said that we could use the Home-Ec freezers if we needed to store anything after school!"

The tears return and blur your rimmed corneas. All those names... Some in cursive, some squiggly and barely readable, others with a squared font. They're going to make a wonderful addition to the Literature Club. And finally it can be recognized as a _real_ club without the player's secondhand influence. _And think of all the poems..._

It's pitiful that you have to wipe your eyes when you return the slip to Sayori. Your grin is quivering, and you manage, "I knew I made the right choice for Vice President."

Sayori blushes again, making an _'oh, you'_ gesture as she claps one hand to her flushed cheek. "Aw, shucks! I can't take all the credit though, what with having the best Vice Presidents in school and all."

You have to chuckle. "Natsuki definitely makes a feisty Vice-Vice President, doesn't she?"

"Yup!" The 'p' is popped. "I couldn't let Yuri have all the fun in bossing me around! Which reminds me of one more surprise! You ready?"

You don't know if your heart can take any more surprises, you reply with a worried smile, "Ready as I'll ever be."

"Okay, close your eyes!"

You obey. Crosshatches of blue, red, shapes and patterns flicker along your inner retinas as you wait.

"Hold out your hands!"

"Sayori..."

"Just do it!" You can hear her pouting. You sigh, pretending to be more exasperated with her schemes than you really are.

When you do as instructed, there's a large, cold platform placed into the cusps of your palms, and uncertainly you clench the sides of it to decipher that you're holding a plate.

"Now...open!"

Your eyes adjust with the help of your lenses, and you peer down to discover a fluffy white cake. It's a bit small, you think; pink frosting spells out in Yuri's handwriting: 'We Miss You!'

Your vision blurs.

"You know they would've done this even if I didn't convince them to," Sayori says sadly, and even without looking up you can hear that perked grin in her tone, ever-present.

Your thumbs run along the dish, heart swelling for four. It's hard to stop shaking when you start to waver and crack, and your cheeks begin to stain as the tears drip onto the plate.

"Ahaha..." You try to smile when you look back onto Sayori's understanding gaze. "It's so small I can't...I can't share a slice if I-"

"Consider it a gift," Sayori explains with a wink. "I won't tell that you ate a whole cake all by yourself!"

You have to give a strained chuckle. "S-stop!"

"We've all done it!" she protests in fun. "Especially if it's made by Natsuki!"

"I heard my name and I'm obligated to think that you're talking badly about me."

You'd both jump if you didn't already hear the sharp clacks of shoes become more prominent in your field of hearing. Sayori turns to greet a baffled-looking Natsuki, hands placed on her flour-caked hips.

"What the heck are you blabbing about over here?" Natsuki presses.

Sayori brushes off her blatant confusion with an airy wave. You still in a stoney silence, pressing the cake as close to your heart as able without getting any of the icing on your school uniform.

"Just practicing some poems I want to read to our upcoming new members," Sayori replies, smooth as the honey in your abandoned tea.

"You could've just come in here and practiced them in front of me and Yuri," Natuski rebuttals.

"'Yuri and I'." You hear a softer voice intercept the conversation, and even though her voice is firm you see Yuri give her smaller companion a warm smile. Natsuki seems to take no more offense at Yuri's grammatical correction and just gives a small 'Hmph'. 

(The cake that Natsuki had inadvertently made for you feels heavy in your lap now. It will taste fluffy and sweet; if she could remember what you've done to her she would have surely laced the recipe with poison.)

Sayori is lead back into the kitchen with eager ears to listen to her poem. There's another glance that she throws over your shoulder at you before she's gone: a pity glance. A look you don't and won't ever deserve. 

Because she will recite the poetry for Natsuki and Yuri, and they will love it. They will dazzle the new recruits of the Literature Club with their poems, their prose, their stories. They will make something beautiful of the club, and it will blossom into flowers among concrete while you sprout continuously as a weed, awaiting to be stomped and sprayed until you shrivel away. And no one will miss you.

It's better like this, you think. Sayori will take better care of them than you ever could. When their faces would convert into unholy terrors, when you modified their dialogue and had them rip each other to shreds with truths that cut deeper than knives...

Yet, you still come over every Sunday for pastries, because Sayori is the only one who remembers to invite you.

You finish your tea, feeling the cold drink awaken your clamped throat, and leave.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~Anyway here's my audition for 'Monika Is A Messy Girl But A Good Girl' Club~~
> 
> [Title](heartcountry.tumblr.com/post/73269780429/I-don't-remember-how-many-nights-we-swallowed-the)
> 
> [Epitaph](memoryslandscape.tumblr.co/post/153513576713/so-many-things-had-i-thought-forgotten)


End file.
